Current Situation
Updated: July 19th
The Elders accepted a plan proposed by Pastor Bill Hatcher on July 11th for Vedat to return home. The trip home is planned for September 28th and Vedat will be accompanied by Pastor Bill Hatcher and Matt Spainhour.
In anticipation of this return, Vedat is scheduled to visit Shriners on September 8th for adjustment of his braces, surgical and urological evaultions, and measurement for a new wheelchair.
Pastor Bill told Vedat about these plans over lunch at Popeye's on July 16th. He will be meeting with Vedat's Mother in Montenegro when he is there on the mission trip that begins on Wednesday (the 21st). There are many aspects of this plan and a great number of things for which to pray. Please look at the How You Can Help and Prayers and Praises pages. Updated: June 18th Vedat moved to be with Brian and Sherrie Beres, his summer host family. They live in Manassas.
Vedat's twice a week Physical Therapy sessions ended earlier this month. He now does a routine of stretching and walking with braces and walker. Dave Mizener, his Physical Therapist, will be visiting Vedat at his host family home on occasion during the summer to encourage him in his daily routine. If you would like to help the host family in this ministry, please check the How You Can Help page.
Vedat’s History Vedat is a young boy from a Roma Gypsy community. His family was forced to flee their home in Kosovo after his father was taken away by the police and presumably killed as an act of “ethnic cleansing.” They fled to a refugee camp in Montenegro where living conditions were deplorable and food was scarce. The family, including Vedat, his mother, his uncle and three brothers, were in a constant battle for survival, made more complex by Vedat’s particular health needs.
When Vedat was still a baby he contracted tuberculosis. Though he survived the disease’s effect on his lungs, it also attacked his spine where it began to eat away at his vertebrae. As he grew older, his spine became more and more malformed, creating a large hump on his back and causing his internal, vital organs to be compressed.
For many children in Vedat’s situation, this would have led to death; however, God was working in amazing ways to save this little boy. Through a series of contact beginning with Bob & Nancy Hitching, missionaries to the Roma people, a group was eventually able to bring Vedat to America for life-saving surgery. Along with him came Vedrana, a wonderful young Christian woman who put her life on hold to be Vedat’s interpreter and guardian for the first year of his stay in America. |
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